Individual Paper
2. From Oceanic Crossroads: Empires, Networks and Histories
For modern European empires, the Hajj, a religious obligation in Islam, posed significant public health and political challenges, requiring imperial governments to implement measures to regulate the movement of pilgrims. In Southeast Asia in the early 20th century, it is often said that the British moved from direct control to indirect rule through economic means. This was achieved by creating a cartel between the British steamship company and Arab merchants in the Straits colonies. However, given the remaining opportunities for steamship companies from other countries to enter this market, it is hard to imagine a shift in imperial rule that would simply cede control of pilgrims to the economic sphere.
This paper reexamines pilgrim management in the Indian Ocean under the British maritime empire in the early 20th century by focusing on the Singapore-Jiddah Hajj shipping project in 1914, which served as a pilot project for two Japanese steamship companies. It becomes evident that the British steamship company's multiple incidents of sabotage against Japanese companies were not in line with economic interests. Due to the onset of World War I, Japanese shipping companies discovered new economic benefits from the growing demand for ships in Europe. This also became one of the factors that led to the unusual discontinuation of pilgrimages from Southeast Asia in 1915. In essence, the British were compelled to temporarily relinquish pilgrim management due to their emphasis on maritime domination and their failure to implement their plans to delegate management to the economic sphere.
Kenji Kuroda
National Museum of Ethnology, Japan